Final Defense

Patrick Crumley, UT-Austin

"On the Nature of Emission from Relativistic Jets"

1:00pm, RLM 15.216B

Abstract: Several longstanding questions in astrophysics center on the make up of relativistic astrophysical jets seen in microquasars, blazars, gamma-ray bursts, and super-Eddington tidal disruption events. What carries the energy in these jets? Is the majority of the energy carried by Poynting flux or by the baryonic matter? How is this energy converted into the non-thermal gamma-rays and X-rays seen in these systems? While there are many different theoretical models for launching a relativistic jet and producing the non-thermal emission observed in these astrophysical systems, often times the observational data are not good enough to convincingly discriminate between models. Super-Eddington tidal disruption events (TDE) represent a unique opportunity to test different emission mechanisms in relativistic jets. I will also discuss using the radio monitoring of the diffuse cloud in the galactic center object G2's to distinguish between different models of G2. Early observations of G2 after periapse passage suggests this prediction was correct.